The Last Hello
by Rokesmith
Summary: Youji takes on an old role to trap a rogue Kritiker agent with stolen secrets, but begins to suspect there may be far-reaching consequences from the information he has been ordered to retrieve. Contains violence and swearing.
1. Super News

**The Last Hello**  
Rokesmith

**Disclaimer:** Weiss Kreuz, its characters, indices etcetera belong to Takehito Koyasu, Kyoko Tsuchiya and Project Weiss. This fanfic was written for fun rather than profit and any resemblances to persons living or dead are purely coincidental.

**Author's Note: **This story takes place in the winter before the events of _Kapitel_, and as such is a prequel of sorts. It is also an homage to the private detective novels of Raymond Chandler, and attempts - I hope, sucessfully - to imitate his style. I refer anyone interested in the source material to Chandler's Philip Marlowe novels, particularly _The Big Sleep_, _The Little Sister_ and _The Long Goodbye_. My thanks to Pichi for her help in the idea's conception and to Laila for her encouragement during the writing process, particularly for the reassurance that I was still writing an homage rather than a pastiche.

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Chapter One: Super News

Youji Kudou sat in the coffee shop like a man in a Hopper painting.

He'd been sitting there for half an hour, drinking cups of coffee as slowly as it's possible for a man to drink a cup without it getting cold. Right now he needed any warmth he could get. It was dark outside, and January snow drifted in between the buildings and filled the streets until Youji felt like he was living inside a souvenir snow globe.

There were only four other people in the coffee shop. Youji paid the most attention to the girl on the table next to him, a college student with melted snow in her hair whose only company were four heavy text books on molecular biology. She had returned Youji's smile, but he'd failed to steal her attention away from the quaternary protein structures. Then there were the two middle-aged salarymen at the bar, who would nurse their mugs without touching them until they cooled, then toast and drain the coffee in a single go before starting again. Youji felt quite sorry for them.

Then there was the man in the corner. He was sitting almost underneath the small mounted television but was straining his neck to watch it. He seemed more interested in the TV programs than his coffee; he was trying to drink it without taking his eyes off the screen. He was about thirty-five and wearing a suit that would have been at home in any office in Tokyo. Youji could only see one unusual thing about him: in a city of offices where uniformity was prized, most men, in Youji's experience, had something to distinguish them from everyone else, however tiny it was and however hard you had to look to see it. But this man had nothing; he wasn't even wearing a watch.

Youji thought he must have been telling the time by the programs on the television. When Super News came on he put his mug down and strained his neck to see. From the other side of the room, Youji watched him watch the solemn anchor announce that police still had no leads in the death of a member of the Prime Minister's security detail, found dead in his apartment the previous week with his wrists slit. At this time, Youji heard, a statement from the police did not rule out suicide, but the investigation was ongoing and there were so far no links to any credible threat to the Prime Minister or any member of the Diet.

That report ended and it was like a switch had been flicked. The man went back to his coffee and finished it quickly, then stood up to wrap himself up in his winter clothes and left the coffee shop without looking back. Youji felt the gust from the door, counted slowly to twenty, then got up and walked out into the cold.

It was like walking into a wall. He wrapped his coat close around him and pulled his hat down, letting snow gather on the brim, but he still felt his skin freeze. There was almost no one on the streets now, rush hour was over and anyone who could was taking a warmer route home. Those that were out didn't really look like people anymore, just bipedal bundles of warm clothes moving slowly through the snow and slush.

Youji picked his bundle and followed it. Unlike almost everyone else on the street, the bundle and the man inside it were heading away from Shinjuku Station. Youji wasn't surprised; no one actually lived in this part of Shinjuku unless they lived in a hotel or above their shop. Every city had parts like this, a place where everyone seemed to come, but not one where they actually stayed.

Youji's mark seemed to be staying. He headed towards one of the large tourist hotels a few streets away from the station. He didn't stop at the front doors; he kept on going and turned the corner around the side of the hotel towards the back entrance. Youji rubbed his hands together for warmth one more time, jammed them deep into his pockets, and followed.

Someone hit him. Not someone, he knew exactly who it was. It was a bad punch, landing on the side of his head just in front of his ear, but he was going to have the good grace to fall over. He crumpled, pulling his hands out of his pockets in time to stop himself from hitting the snow too hard, down on his hands and knees and staring at the pair of scuffed, uninteresting shoes for a few seconds before his hands got so numb he decided to pull them out of the snow and straighten up before he got frostbite.

He stayed down, unthreatening, and looked up at the man who had hit him. The dim light and the bulk added by the winter clothes might have made him more intimidating to someone else, but to Youji he just looked scared.

"Who are you?" the man demanded.

"Most people don't have to hit me before they ask that," Youji responded. "How about I hit you then ask the same question?"

The man took half a step back and raised his fist. He'd probably do a better job of the next punch, so Youji didn't give him the chance. He pushed himself to his feet and smiled.

"Actually," he continued, "I'm not going to bother hitting you or asking you who you are. I know that already. You're Daisuke Sakai, a junior detective in the Tokyo Met who's never cracked a major case. No wife, no children, no family in the city. But a week ago you were involved in the death of a young cop who worked protecting the Prime Minister. You two had never met before, but you did have one thing in common: as well as being Tokyo's finest, you both report to an organisation that calls itself Kritiker."

Sakai had spent the entire explanation looking as though he didn't know whether to make Youji shut up or let him keep talking, but when he heard the last word he seized Youji by the collar of his brown overcoat and spun him around. He slammed him hard against the wall, and Youji was grateful that his extra layers took most of the blow.

"How do you know that name?" He demanded.

Youji managed to keep his smile. "Wrong answer. What you should have said was 'what's Kritiker?' Didn't they tell you that?"

This earned him another shove against the wall. "Who are you? How do you know that?"

Youji grinned. "My name's Youji Kudou. I'm the guy Kritiker sent after you."


	2. Turncoat

Chapter Two: Turncoat

You can tell a lot about a man from the contents of his pockets. Although sometimes it's exactly what he wants them to tell you.

Sakai had kicked Youji in the ribs and then dragged him up into the hotel like he was escorting a drunken friend. The room was uncomfortably small, a dull grey without any sign of life in any of the beds or furnishings, the sort of place that visiting tourists would want to see the city just so they could leave. Leaving wasn't an option for Youji, who was handcuffed to a chair in the corner while Sakai went through the contents of his pockets. The handcuffs were tight; he couldn't feel his hands anymore.

Youji's heavy overcoat and his jacket were on the bed in an untidy heap. Scattered across the sheets was a wallet, a card holder, a half-empty pack of cigarettes with the heavy gold lighter, a single lonely breath mint in the wreckage of its packet, an unpleasantly green disposable camera, a few thousand yen in crumpled notes and scattered coins, the sunglasses and the heavy digital watch. It looked like the sum of a very small, very private life.

Sakai picked up the card holder and the wallet. "This says you're a private detective," he said. "At least it agrees with your driver's licence. They both say you're name's Youji Kudou."

"It's a common name," Youji responded.

"It would also make a good alias."

Youji laughed. "Look, Sakai, I've got enough to worry about without trying to remember my own name."

Sakai hit him in the stomach. It wasn't as hard or as bad as it could have been, but it still hurt. Youji made it look worse than it was, doubling over as far as the handcuffs would allow and gasping. When he looked up again, there was a Polaroid being flatted against his nose.

"Who's she?" Sakai demanded.

"My girlfriend," Youji replied.

Sakai looked at the black-and-white picture of the girl in the secretary's outfit, her face partially obscured by long curly brown hair in a good impression of a Hollywood movie star from the forties who understood that real sex appeal lay in the tilt of the head, the parting of the lips, and the look in the eyes, not in what a girl put on or took off. It was some of Birman's finest work. When Youji had taken the picture, he had asked her whether she was imitating Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner. Despite this, part of him still wished that Manx had let him take her picture.

"What do you want from me?" Sakai asked.

"Finally," Youji said. "Now I get to see the other half of your one man good-cop-bad-cop act. You could have started with this and I'd have told you. In fact, my entire plan relies on us having this conversation. But before we do, can I have a cigarette?"

Sakai selected one of the most battered Camels from the battered packet and jammed it into Youji's mouth. Youji made several comic faces as he moved the cigarette around so he could hold it between his teeth

"Thanks," he said. "Do you feel like lighting it?"

Sakai lit the cigarette. "I'm not taking off the cuffs."

Youji smiled. "Sakai-san, I'm a professional private investigator. Do you think this is the first time I've had to smoke a cigarette while tied to a chair?"

"This is the last time I'm going to ask you why you were following me." Sakai sat down on the bed.

"You should know who I am," Youji replied. "You've been expecting me for a week. Or someone just like me. You killed another Kritiker agent, and they sent me after you. You know the drill as well as I do; watch, listen, record, hand over all information no matter how insignificant, and never let your mark know you're there."

"So what the hell are you thinking?" Sakai demanded. "Why break the rules? If Kritiker want me monitored, you've put your own head in a noose next to mine."

Youji made a gesture with his head, and Sakai reluctantly shoved an ash tray between his knees before Youji continued. "All my contact told me was that you were a Kritiker agent who they wanted me to watch. That got me curious. When I saw the news report on the young cop's death I put it together. There was nothing special about this crime, nothing that the police couldn't investigate, so it had to involve Kritiker. But the only reason one Kritiker agent would kill another is if he had found out about something very valuable."

Sakai's expression changed; a blink washed the fear out of his eyes. "How much?"

"Forty percent," Youji said. "I don't think that's unreasonable. Call it payment for services rendered."

"Services?"

"Services." Youji nodded. "I don't even need to know what you got, but I can guess from the cop's job that it has something to do with the Prime Minister, so it's got to be worth something to someone, and you wouldn't do something this crazy without knowing you have a buyer. So I'll share the risk, give you a hand and keep Kritiker off our backs while we do this. And then afterwards we just disappear."

The other man delicately plucked the cigarette end from Youji's lips and stubbed it out, his hard dark eyes staring deeply into Youji's cool green ones. "Why?" he whispered.

"When you want to tell me why you're doing it," Youji answered. "I'll tell you why I am."

Without breaking eye contact, Sakai reached behind Youji and opened the handcuffs with a careless flick of the wrist. Youji smiled, stood, and rubbed his wrists to restore the blood flow. He walked around the room as if Sakai wasn't there, picking up his coat and carefully replaced put everything back in the right pockets. He poured himself a glass of water from the bathroom sink, drained it, poured another one, and then sat down on the bed.

"Thank you."

"How do I know you won't turn me in to Kritiker?" Sakai asked.

Youji shrugged. "How do I know you won't drop me off the Rainbow Bridge? I get nothing if I turn you in. You can't trust me yet, but trust I want my forty percent."

"Twenty percent."

"Thirty."

"Okay, thirty."

They stood and bowed. They watched each other, each man trying to understand the other through the way he bowed and the way he straightened up afterwards. Youji knew Sakai was trying to find out what he was hiding, trying to read his mind through his eyes. For an instant, he let himself show a little of himself, let a trace of the real Youji Kudou smile out at Sakai. Just for an instant, because Sakai deserved to get something for his effort.

"You'll understand if I don't want to exchange cards."

"So what now?" Sakai asked.

"I go back to my hotel," Youji said. "It's getting late, and I'd like to get some painkillers before the shops shut. I know where I can find you."

"But you don't know where to find what I have," Sakai told him. "It's in a safe place."

"Of course it is."

Sakai opened the door. Youji walked through it. They didn't bow, they hardly nodded, then Youji walked away down the corridor as Sakai closed the door behind him. He made it to the lift before he let himself feel the pain. The burning in his ribs, the ache in his arms, the pounding in his head seemed to merge to fill his entire body. He coughed viciously as he emerged into the freezing night, but he fought it, wrapping his overcoat around himself like a full-body bandage.

It was starting to snow again. Youji lit another cigarette just to breathe in something warm, and headed into the night in search of alcohol and aspirin.


	3. Alone Together

Chapter Three: Alone Together

Youji Kudou's eyes opened to the sight of a half-empty bottle of whisky and a glowing digital alarm clock that read 8:57. He wanted to know what had happened to the guy who'd been standing on his chest, and why Ken and his kids couldn't find somewhere better to play soccer than inside his head.

The room that waited outside his eyes was worse than the one Sakai had held him in last night. It was a dull brown, the colour of the inside of a coffin. It was also tiny, nothing more than the single bed, the lamp and the clock radio, part of what deserved to be one of the cheapest hotels in the Shinjuku area. He hadn't stayed in a hotel like this in a long time, and it brought back memories of his detective days. Memories he tried very hard to forget.

Despite the pain, despite the headache, he was almost fully awake instantly, knowing that something had woken him. Outside the door was the unmistakable sound of someone moving quietly. Youji reached under the pillow and retrieved a retractable truncheon before slipping barefoot across the room. He reached the door, but slipped left into the bathroom as there was a quiet click and the door opened. Sakai stepped through, his eyes fixed on the bed, but started violently as he caught the movement to his side. It was just Youji dropping his arm to his side and relaxing.

Youji yawned and stretched. "You're early. I was hoping you wouldn't be here till ten."

Sakai closed the door behind him. "How did you know I'd find you?"

"I didn't exactly make it hard." Youji smiled. "You're a cop, and a good one. You can find a man in a hotel room in Shinjuku easily. I just thought it'd take you longer."

For the first time, Youji saw Sakai smile. It wasn't a particularly pleasant smile. It was the smile of a man who was happy because he knew something. He understood the situation, and that meant he could control it.

"You must be cold," Sakai said. "Put some clothes on and we'll talk."

Youji looked down as if he was surprised that he was just wearing his underpants. At least Sakai hadn't seen the nametag in them. He went to the small wardrobe and found some trousers and a shirt, pulling them on as Sakai sat down on the bed.

"Youji Kudou," he began, "twenty-four years old. You did one year of a law degree and are a licensed private investigator as of two years ago. You rent a small office in Shibuya and live in a cheap apartment with your girlfriend. She works as a secretary at a law firm which hires you from time to time. You've been questioned by the police several times but have never been formally charged with anything."

"It makes it sound boring when you say it like that," Youji remarked.

"Did you know there was another private detective in Tokyo called Youji Kudou?"

"I said it was a common name," Youji replied, without even blinking.

Sakai shrugged. "He didn't look like a relative. He had short dark hair and a beard."

Youji nodded with genuine interest. He had occasionally wondered whose photo Kritiker had used to replace his own in the police files.

"I'll have to look him up some time."

"You can't," Sakai told him. "He was shot and killed two years ago."

Despite himself, Youji shivered. He should have known better than to try to burn incense at his own grave. Or hers.

He finished buttoning his shirt, looked up, and smiled. "You must be hungry after that biography. Let me buy you breakfast."

***

They ate in a small cafe inside the maze of Shinjuku Station where the food was almost always eaten in a hurry so it didn't have to be that good. Youji had been cautious and just ordered soup and rice. Sakai had ordered an omelette as well, but from what Youji could tell, he seemed to be enjoying it.

They ate in silence. After the meal, Youji sat back and lit a cigarette. He looked at his watch and then at Sakai.

"In an hour, I have to meet my Kritiker contact."

Sakai flinched as if Youji had hit him. "Why?"

"To make my report," Youji answered. "I wanted to meet her in person just in case you didn't see things my way last night. I had to take precautions. But if I report in the right way, I'll be able to buy us till Monday, but no longer."

"That doesn't give me much time," Sakai said.

Youji shook his head. "It doesn't give _us_ much time. As soon as I lie to her, we're in this together till the end. Or you can try to go it alone."

"You're clever, Kudou," Sakai muttered. "You could have warned me."

"But that wouldn't have been clever of me, would it?" Youji said.

Sakai relaxed, admitting defeat. He took the last of Youji's cigarettes from the offered packet but lit it himself. They paid and left the cafe for the bustle of the station. By now it was very busy. Rush hour was over but there were still more than enough people to lose themselves in. They turned through the crowd at random, taking any junction with enough people coming out of it. Then they stopped for a minute to stub out their cigarettes watch the crowd pass. There were no familiar faces, none of the tiny details of individuality stood out more than once.

When they finally left the station, Youji told Sakai, "I want you to watch me meet my contact."

"Why?"

"Call it an act of good faith. You'll be mostly out of sight, of course. She won't be able to see you and I couldn't point you out even if I wanted to."

Sakai thought about it, but Youji already knew the answer: "Okay. But this doesn't mean I trust you."

"You shouldn't," Youji said. "Not yet, anyway."

Sakai followed Youji to a half-empty coffee bar. Youji waited outside until he had bought a coffee and sat down next to the fire exit, then crossed the road to a newsstand. He bought another packet of Camels and read the health warning on the front, just to see which one it was this time. One of the non-specific ones. He lit a cigarette and glanced through the selection of magazines in front of him, but nothing caught his interest. He bought a copy of the _Asahi_ and looked up the street over the cultural section.

He had barely reached the end of the first paragraph before he saw her, and then the article might as well have been about the impact of Anglo-Japanese relations on nineteenth century whaling for all the interest it held to him. She had straight black hair down to her shoulders with a ruler-straight fringe framing her face. Her smart clothes clung tightly to her, and she wore nothing over them despite the cold. Her skirt was as short as ever, her long legs kept warm by shear tights. Her hips swayed aggressively. It could have been a different woman from the one Youji knew, but her ankles were as distinctive as ever.

Youji lent back against the newsstand and watched her walk towards him. He enjoyed it. She could take all the time she wanted to reach him.

Despite the body language, Birman's eyes were still cool. "Well, Youji?"

"It's working, so far," Youji said. "He's suspicious, but if he weren't, I would be."

"Do you have any leads?" Birman asked.

Youji shook his head. "Nothing concrete yet. I think whoever bought him is very high up. I know he's got the data he stole from the other agent hidden somewhere, probably in the station, but I'm not going to press him."

"What's your plan?"

"Patience," Youji said. "A woman as beautiful as you shouldn't worry. He's starting to trust my greed. He's in the coffee shop across the road waiting for me to finish lying to you. He won't trust me without a reason, so I'm going to give him one. But I'll need help from one of the others to do it."

"What are you going to do?"

Youji gave her his best smile. "I'm going to save his life."


	4. Best Enemy

Chapter Four: Best Enemy

That afternoon, the snow on the pavements had turned to slush. Tiny clumps survived, clinging to life in corners or around the bases of lampposts. They had lost the pure white of the night and the morning, turning a dull grey as it was tainted by the muck from the streets.

Youji and Sakai found themselves in Shibuya, walking around like good friends. As they navigated the waxing currents of the rush hour, Youji watched Sakai take in the faces of the people they passed. Every face was compared to the massive file in the cop's memory. If he saw the same person more than once, Youji knew he'd know.

Sakai smoked to keep the rest of his mind and his body occupied. Youji wanted a cigarette, but kept his hands in his pockets as he told his lies.

"She wants the written report in seventy-two hours."

"Three days? You said we'd have four."

Youji shrugged. "I guess my powers are waning. But that still gives our business enough time. One day to arrange the exchange, one day to get the money, and you can be out of the country by the time I make the report. Easy. By the time they figure out I was involved, I'll be packed and gone too."

"Where?"

"You let me worry about that."

Sakai stopped, dropped his cigarette, and ground it contemptuously beneath his foot. "I'll give you something to worry about, Kudou. We're being followed."

"Unless it's a gorgeous brunette in a short skirt, it's no one I know," Youji said.

Ken Hidaka wasn't exactly subtle. On a street of people whose entire look could have come from the same mould, a kid in a leather jacket with his hair in his eyes really stood out. Youji turned to examine a vending machine as if he had no other cares in the world, using the moment to watch Ken moving through the crowd with all the elegance and subtlety of a super tanker. For someone who looked as much like everyone else as Ken did, being this obvious must have been taking a lot of effort.

"Well, I think we both know he can't be with either of us. We'd have hired someone better at tailing someone than that," Youji muttered.

Sakai sighed. "You're right. This way."

Youji shook his head calmly and indicated the junction in front of them. "You go ahead," he said. "Maybe I can reason with him."

Sakai dropped back into the crowd without another word. He bobbed in and out of sight, riding the currents until he was swept into the side street to the left. Youji made no effort to follow the patterns, forcing them to part around him as he walked forward and stood at the junction. He opened his coat and let the cold breeze slip inside. Sakai was still in sight, peeping out from behind a phone box like a nervous child. Youji took off his sunglasses and his hat, stuck his hands in his pockets and waited for Ken.

Ken stopped in front of Youji. He put his hands on his hips and didn't speak. His eyes were waiting. His body was still, but like a spring waiting to uncoil.

"Let's make this look convincing," Youji said.

The Bullet Train hit him in the stomach. It certainly felt like the Bullet Train, it might just have been Ken's fist, Youji wasn't sure. He nearly doubled over, recapturing his lost air in a great gasp that hurt just as much as losing it in the first place. Someone nearby was screaming, but for all Youji knew, that might just have been him.

"Not... that... convincing."

Ken had to punch up to hit him, that was all that saved him. Youji stumbled backwards and the next blow went wide, though not through any effort on Ken's part. Youji hit Ken in the stomach, which knocked Ken back two steps but he looked like he'd forgotten he was supposed to feel it. He came forward again and threw his whole weight behind a blow that should have had Youji placing a lost and found request for his head. The only reason it didn't was because Youji knew Ken and knew the move. He blocked the iron bar Ken seemed to be using inside his arm and tried to save his friend the trouble of apologising for punching all the way through him by hitting Ken as hard as he could.

It nearly broke Youji's arm. His hand went numb all the way up to the wrist. Ken just had time to give him an angry glare and then crashed to the ground on his face. Youji thought that Ken had been hit in the head so many times that he ought to be used to it by now.

Sakai grabbed Youji by the arm. The street was suddenly empty as the crowds had vanished into the gathering dusk. Before Youji knew it he was half way down the street, away from the circle that was forming around his friend. No one had looked at them twice, and if the witnesses made statements to the police they might have seen any of five different men fighting. Kritiker would take care of the rest.

"What happened?" Sakai demanded.

"He hit me," Youji responded. "I didn't ask why."

"We have to split up," Sakai said. "Whoever they are, that'll make it harder for them to find us. Meet me back at your hotel in three hours."

Youji nodded. "I'll see you back there. Be careful."

"Thank you," Sakai muttered.

Then he was gone. Youji crossed the road, pulling his hair into a ponytail. Then he walked back to the junction and put his shades back on. He did up his coat and pushed his way through the people slowing down around Ken. None of them were doing anything to help, assuming someone else must have done something. When Youji knelt down, even the curious started moving. It wasn't their concern any longer.

"You alright, Ken?"

Ken rolled over. His eyes were half open. He seemed to be working out which of the Youjis he was seeing was the one he was supposed to talk to.

"Go to hell, Kudou."

He hauled Ken to his feet. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd done that too. At least there was no blood this time. Not much, anyway. The bruise under his hairline would be nasty, but he'd had much, much worse. He'd be hell to live with after this, Youji felt sorry for Omi and Aya. Well, maybe not Aya.

"Taxi!" Youji shouted.

The first one might have gone past if it hadn't been held up by a red sports car, giving Youji enough time to dump Ken in the back. "Take him to the nearest hospital," Youji said, giving the driver a handful of bills. "He slipped in the snow and hit his head."

"I really hate you, Youji," Ken muttered.

"I love you too, Kenken."

The taxi struggled away into the rising tide of traffic. Youji stood on the corner and watched until it was just enough blur of brake lights in the dusk. He looked at his watch. It was half past five. He stood on the street corner and rubbed his right hand, looking at the bruises left by his friend's head to protect a man he was going to kill. The plan that brought this about had been his own.

"I'm sorry, Ken," he murmured. "I'm sorry, Daisuke."

He replaced his hat, lit a cigarette and walked away into the dusk.


	5. Too Human Tonight

Chapter Five: Too Human Tonight

The snow started to fall, and he didn't go home.

The snow and the rush hour and stopped the traffic on the roads. It got dark, and the streets became streams of headlights and brake lights trickling through the city, bunching up at junctions like blood clots before the inevitable heart attack. Beneath his feet, subway cars would be wrappers of almost solid compressed flesh, smelling like locker rooms and hotter than ovens. Anyone with any sense was walking. It was a long walk, but he didn't care.

He came up into Bit Valley and was surrounded by salarymen. He might have been one of them. Get up in a tiny apartment alone or with a woman who'll kiss your cheek if you're lucky, drift to work, spend your day working in a box that's so small you have to be reminded it's not already your coffin, drift home, eat dinner that'll never quite taste as good as what your mother made you when you were young, go to bed and thank your lucky stars you can do it all again tomorrow. Maybe in between you'll play with your kids or help them with their homework. Maybe your eldest son will look up from _Gran Turismo_ long enough to tell you he's doing well in school, and you'll be proud. And when the day is over maybe you'll even have sex with your wife, because it's too simple to be making love, and there's not enough passion left for fucking. But afterwards she'll say she loves you, and you'll say it back.

He kept walking. No point wishing for a life you can't have and don't even want. Just be part of a crowd. A drop of water in a stream. No, he was smaller than that. A molecule of water in the bay. Moving back and forth but never really going anywhere. Maybe he was part of a wave that pounded on shore, but the shore never changed either.

That wasn't true. Youji Kudou did change things. He changed things in a way that made sure no one could ever change things back again, no matter how hard they tried. There's no more permanent way to change a life than ending it.

Sometimes he asked himself if they did the right thing. He tried to stop himself, answering that it didn't matter whether it was or not, but he asked anyway. He knew it wasn't right, but he did it anyway. He knew Omi believed Weiss were right in what they did, but then the poor kid had a moral compass so screwed up it permanently pointed to the lodestone on Persia's desk that the shadow man probably used as a paperweight. He knew Ken didn't think they were right, but thought what they did had to be done: a necessary evil, he'd called it once. Aya did it for a girl, that was all Youji knew. Aya had never explained and Youji had never said anything, especially not that he doubted whichever Aya their newest teammate had taken his name from would appreciate what he was doing with it.

And Youji knew the answer to his own question. He didn't kill with Weiss because he thought it was right, or because it had to be done or even because of the memory of someone long gone. He did it because the targets Weiss hunted changed other people's lives for the worse, and though he could never save their victims, at least he could stop it from happening again. It wasn't noble or heroic, and there were so many other ways, but Youji had made his choice, and there was no one left to care.

He lit another cigarette and wondered if he could even use that excuse this time. The job this time was to clear up Kritiker's mess. The organisation had become too good at breeding secrecy and betrayal, and now one of their own had kept secrets. They themselves had been betrayed. Get close to a man who had upheld the law, whose only crime had been not being special enough until he had stolen another secret. Youji didn't know why he'd done it, he didn't even know what the secret had been that was worth killing for. He would at least find out who the buyer was, they would say a last hello very briefly, but he might never know the motive. Weiss never asked for reasons or excuses, they simply delivered judgement. But this time Youji had to get to know the target, become his friend, learn his secrets, push him and pull him in the right direction, walk him blind down a path towards a cliff and then give him a good shove. Et tu, Kudou?

The cigarette wasn't enough to keep him warm anymore, so he stopped for coffee in sight of the statue Hachiko. All he cared about the coffee was that it was hot, the rest was irrelevant. As he drank he watched the old dog statue, and desperately hoped someone would meet under it as he had done many times. He stared across the road, feeling cold even as the coffee burned his throat and stomach, and alone. Then he was rewarded. A high school boy wearing glasses to make him look smarter paced around the statue to keep warm. A girl with a deliberately short skirt and honest glasses walked up and waved. The boy was so busy beaming he forgot to breathe, then he took her hand for a moment, let it go, and they walked off into the snow together. Youji suddenly felt warm.

It would have been easy to get on a train at the station, but Youji kept walking. Even in the cold, a freezing winter night with the snow falling, Harajuku made him smile. He could feel the style in the air. Shops offered suits straight from the designers in Europe from windows blazing with light, as if style was a gift from a benevolent deity. Maybe it was. Youji stopped, examining a thick winter overcoat knit from the most aristocratic Italian sheep, and tugged thoughtfully at the lapel of the well-worn trench coat left over from his PI days that, despite everything, he couldn't bring himself to throw away.

Then there were the girls. It wasn't even Sunday, but they were still there. Youji had to admire their dedication: rush home from school, get out of the uniform, spend nearly an hour dressing and making themselves up just so they could walk the streets with their friends on a freezing evening in the snow. They glistened and glittered, walking fashion statements. Beautiful, in their own way, but ugly at the same time. He could have been in a manga. These weren't real girls anymore, they were stylised creations of their own imaginations. They might as well have been pictures on a page. There were days when Youji wondered about himself. He was half expecting to bump into Rick Deckard coming the other way.

He wondered where the cynicism had come from. He'd been Kawaii once. He'd danced with rockabillys, flirted with gothic-lolitas and once even helped a girl out of her sailor suit. The truth was he'd grown up. He was still a pretty boy, but he was a smart pretty boy. The girls he liked were grown up, they knew themselves and they knew what they wanted. They took him home because what they wanted was a pretty boy who'd show them a good time, take them for a ride and wouldn't make a fuss when they kissed goodbye. They'd all grown up enough to go into it with their eyes open.

He thought of the girls in the flower shop. There were days when you could practically taste the hormones in the air. They tasted like flat soda: strangely sweet, but something was missing. He felt sorry for Omi and Ken, they were the right age for the girls. The three years between him and the oldest of the girls was too much of a chasm to jump. You did your best bit of growing up in those three years. Before, you were a kid borrowing your name being bounced around the world by merciless chemicals inside your own mind. Afterwards, you got to be you for the first time in your life. To those girls, he was unattainable, just a fantasy figure who they got to giggle over every day. He may as well have been posing next to Teru in a Glay poster on their bedroom walls.

The weird thing was that he missed it. He realised he'd reached Shinjuku again when he saw the National Stadium through the snow, and felt a pang of regret. He had been away for a week, but it felt like forever. He felt like he'd left himself behind there. In Shinjuku he was a parody of Youji Kudou, spewing lines that Bogart would have made sound a hundred times better. Back in the shop he would be himself, and he would be home. The girls would buzz around like bees with a warped sense of priorities. Omi would carve through schoolwork with ease then come to a screeching halt when he hit the part of his life that his chessboard brain couldn't deal with. Ken would attack everything he did with savage perfectionism even if it was just making flowers into the shape of a cartoon cat. Aya would just stand there like he always did, the only man in history to win a staring contest with a sunflower. One day, Youji and Ken were going to bring in a cardboard cut-out on his day off and see if anyone noticed.

Thoughts of his team helped him focus. His hours of introspection were almost up. It was time to get back to work. He had decided a long time ago he would do his job, and do it to the end. He would never let down someone who depended on him again. Once in a lifetime was enough.

When he got back to the hotel, the phone was ringing.


	6. Speak of the Devil

Chapter Six: Speak of the Devil

The phone sounded as if it had been ringing for quite some time, and was getting upset about it.

He'd come in too quickly to see the receptionist, but she sounded pretty. "Kudou-san, you have a phone call from your brother Omi."

"I miss him," Youji said. "Put him through, please."

"Youji-kun." Omi sounded even more cheerful than usual, probably in case someone was still listening. "How's work?"

"The job's going well," Youji replied. "Made some good progress today. How's school?"

"We had a test today," Omi said. "Ken called from college. Did you two get in a fight?"

Youji winced. "It wasn't serious. We've both had worse."

"He said you hit him in the head."

One day, Youji thought, Omi would make a great mother. "It was the only way I could think of to end the fight," he said. "No one ever got around to teaching Ken how to pull his punches. He'd probably knocked them out already."

"Then next time maybe you shouldn't start, Youji-kun," Omi said.

"He's okay, though?"

"Of course he is, Youji-kun. Maybe you should try to keep in touch more. Aya thinks you should."

Youji smiled. "Tell her not to worry. I'll call her later."

There was a knock on the door so quiet he barely heard it. Someone could have stood out there for the whole of the conversation, listening. This was why when anyone from Weiss was on the phone, they were family.

"I've got to go," Youji said. "Tell Aya I'll call her soon."

Sakai was at the door. He looked damp and cold. He had a tremble brought on by too many cups of coffee.

"Come in," Youji told him. "You look like you need a drink."

Sakai didn't move. "Who were you talking to?"

"My brother," Youji said. "He gets worried when I tell him I'm going away on jobs. I think he thinks I'm going to end up on the news being fished out of the bay. He's a good kid but he's seen too many movies."

"Who's Aya?"

Youji smiled. "You've see her. She looks stunning in monochrome."

"Your girlfriend?"

"Yeah." Youji stepped aside and Sakai finally came in. "She acts tough but I know she worries about me. My brother's always nice to her. He won't be happy till I marry her."

"Does she know?"

"About Kritiker?" Youji laughed. "How stupid do you think I am? I told her the reason I was staying here was to find a girl from Kyoto whose parents think she's working in the Red Light District."

"Clever."

Sakai sat down on the bed. His hands were still trembling, and it wasn't from the cold. Youji poured him a generous slug of the whiskey. He sat in a chair and waited for Sakai to speak. He'd obviously spent the last few hours thinking. Too much time to think.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome."

Sakai thought again. He wanted to ask a question, Youji could see it in his eyes. He didn't know if he wanted to know the answer. Sakai drank the drink.

"Have you ever heard of something called _Weiss_?"

Youji had known he might be asked that question. He'd hoped right up till Sakai had spoken the word that he wouldn't have to answer, but now he had no choice. The tightrope he was walking had suddenly got as thin as his wire. He had to answer without telling too much truth, but he knew he could only lie so much.

"What's Weiss?" Youji asked. "Do they have something to do with that kid?" He stopped, waited just long enough for a smart guy to put pieces together, then looked into Sakai's eyes and told the truth. "They kill people for Kritiker."

Sakai poured himself another glass. Up till now Youji had been worried about making him suspicious. He'd been a man walking across a frozen river watching and listening for any sign of a crack in the ice. Now he realised that after all this time, Sakai desperately needed to share who he was. The ice wouldn't crack.

"I've worked for Kritiker for over a year. I was approached after the case against someone I was investigating collapsed because no one would testify. I knew all along what I was helping them do, I never tried to fool myself. But after a while I got curious. I was able to look into four of the people I'd investigated for them. Two of them had been arrested, one on drugs trafficking charges even though he never went near the stuff, and one for illegal use of firearms. The other two were dead. The report said they had accidents, but I looked a bit closer and they weren't accidents. Buried deep in one of the police files was a report that when one of them had 'accidentally' strangled himself to death in his office, one of his security personnel, before he mysteriously passed out, had heard someone use the word _Weiss_. It was buried so deep I can't even prove it exists, so I knew it had to be important."

"I just kept track of the obituaries," Youji said. "I don't give a damn about whether I'm doing the right thing, I never did. But someday soon Kritiker is going to go to hell and I don't want to go down with it, so I'm going to take this money, take Aya and we're going to go and work for my uncle, who runs a photography business in Sydney. And when we get there I'm going to marry her."

"So why did you start?"

There were a thousand things Youji Kudou could have said to that. Stories from books, newspapers and films. None of them were too extraordinary for Kritiker. He could have told any of them and Sakai would have believed him. But he didn't. It was time for his confession. He told the truth.

"I went looking for a girl once. I found her. She'd fallen in with some bad people and tried to get out. She'd been beaten, raped, and finally strangled. They had a picture of her mother in the paper. I'll never forget it. The people who did it were never even questioned by the police. Afterwards, I was so angry that when I was offered a chance to stop it happening to someone else, I took it."

Both men fell silent. They nursed their drinks like old friends and digested what they had just heard. Youji had shared Sakai's danger and his pain. He knew he had his trust. Youji's conscience sent a shiver through him like a cold wind, but draughts are easy to ignore after a while.

"How are we going to get the money?" Youji asked eventually.

"Tomorrow I meet someone sent by the buyer to negotiate a price," Sakai replied. "If all goes well we make the exchange the day after."

"What if all doesn't go well?" Youji said, watching him again. "Why don't you send me tomorrow? I can negotiate as well as you can. I don't even know what we're talking about or where it is. The guy they send won't know any better either. They can't get information out of me that I don't have. You can trust me enough to know that I won't screw this up because otherwise I get nothing."

Sakai thought again. "Why don't you want to know what we're selling?"

"I don't care," Youji said. "I never did. Nothing matters but getting the job done."


	7. Date with Destiny

Chapter Seven: Date with Destiny

The meeting had been arranged by someone who'd seen too many movies.

Shinjuku Central Park didn't look like it was in a snow globe anymore. Walking across it, Youji felt like he was in a picture post card, the kind of scene that's so carefully constructed it can't possibly be real. It had stopped snowing, but the park was still completely white. The skyscrapers looking down on the park cast long black shadows. The winter sunlight was warm. Inside the shadows it was cold.

The salarymen spoiled the postcard. They almost filled the park. The ones that had made it to work through the snow were enjoying their lunch breaks by getting it all over their polished shoes.

Youji didn't kid himself that he looked like one of them. He wore the suit: black pinstripes and a red patterned tie, but it was covered by his pale overcoat. No one else wore sunglasses, and he wore his to keep out the snow glare. His hair was too long and too pale. He hadn't brought his hat. He felt conspicuous enough without it.

He zigzagged across the park for ten minutes to make sure no one was following him who shouldn't have been. No one was following him at all. So he went to meet the man he'd seen from a distance waiting under a tree.

From a distance, he looked uncertain. From up close, he looked terrified. His suit didn't quite fit, as though he was expecting to grow into it. The snow around him was stamped flat. There was a collection of flattened cigarettes around his feet and he seemed to be trying to break a speed smoking record with his latest one. Youji thought they were the same age, but just looking at the man made him think of Omi.

"Hi," Youji said.

The young man blinked and bit down on his cigarette while he tried to remember what he was supposed to say. "Sakai-san?"

"No. Kudou-san." Youji smiled, wanting nothing more to pat the man on the head. "I'm Sasaki-san's associate. You aren't the man who employed him, and I am not the employee, so at least we both agree on our precautions. This is obviously making you very uncomfortable so we'll get it over with as soon as possible. Make your call and I'll make mine."

The young man dialled his mobile so Youji couldn't see the number. He spoke into it, quickly and quietly.

"Do you have it?" he asked.

"We have it," Youji replied.

"Can you prove that?"

"The fact that I'm here should be proof enough. After everything we've been through there'd be no point meeting to ask for payment for something we can't produce. Is that good enough for you? Or you, on the telephone?"

The young man spoke into the phone again. A moment passed, then he held it out.

"Hello?"

"Kudou-san?"

Youji had been expecting anything from a voice scrambler to a fake foreign accent, but the voice on the phone was very normal.

"I am."

"How do I know you represent Sakai-san?"

"He told me your first name was Itsuo," Youji replied. "You didn't tell him your last name. I don't care who you are, though. I'm here to arrange a meeting. We have what you want, do you have what we want?"

"Five million yen," the voice said.

"There's two of us now. Eight million."

There was a rustle on the line. "Seven."

"Deal."

"Tomorrow morning, four a.m. at the tennis courts in Hibiya Park."

"One moment."

Youji handed the phone back. He took out his own disposable mobile and dialled. It only had to ring once.

"Tomorrow morning at four. The Hibiya Park tennis courts. Seven million."

The phone lost the precise noise Sakai made at the other end. "Seven million yen? Really? That's great, Kudou. More than enough to get you and Aya to Australia. Tell him we agree. Thank you."

He hung up. Youji reached out and took the other mobile.

"See you tomorrow."

He turned the phone off and threw it back. Before the young man had caught it he was walking away through the snow. He gave it a minute and then stopped behind a tree for a cigarette. Behind him, the young man walked off the opposite direction. He was moving too quickly to be anyone else. He'd need a lot of practice if he wanted to be secretive and get away with it. And most people only got one chance. Youji thought about following him but decided it wasn't worth it. He'd probably be seeing him again in the morning.

He left the park in the shadow of one of the office buildings. This building had a florist's delivery bike outside. Every day they had fresh flowers delivered to their reception. Today the delivery had been a little late. As he crossed the road, Youji wondered if they'd bothered with an excuse. He should have been paying more attention. A car horn roared, it felt like it was all around him, then it faded. He reached the other pavement without being hit by anything. The car was already gone.

Aya Fujimiya stood on the pavement checking some paperwork. That's what it looked like to anyone else. Blue jeans, orange sweater, red hair, standing next to a pink motorbike. People should point and laugh when he went out in public. They didn't, and Youji wished he knew why. Looking permanently annoyed and aloof might convince a shop full of schoolgirls you were the coolest man on Earth, but Aya was able to do it to most people. Maybe that was why he wore the sweater. If he didn't, people might start worshiping him.

"Aya."

"Youji."

"How's Ken?"

"Omi has him on stockroom duty. He'll live."

"Tell him he'll be able to take his bad temper out on me soon enough. That'll make him feel better."

Aya swung his leg over the bike and started it. The engine whined hopefully. He put it in gear and revved the engine gently. The rev-counter danced and he looked sideways at Youji.

"Hibiya Park tennis courts," Youji said. "Four a.m."

The words were snatched by the sound of the engine. Aya's eyes narrowed and he nodded. He pulled his helmet on and let the break out. Then he was gone. Youji looked around without turning his head, then he walked back into the park. He crossed it once, then twice, then strolled into Tochomae station.

He took the Toei Oedo line down eight stops, then got off and retraced his route. He spent an hour bouncing from line to line like a hamster lost in a high-speed maze. All he had for company was a cheap newspaper. He read it three times before he realised it was a week old.

He managed to get all the way to Shinjuku Station without wondering what Sakai had that was worth seven million yen. Everything was worth something to someone. Whoever said that knowledge was power had it right. Knowledge was the most valuable commodity in the world, and some information was beyond priceless. Youji knew the sort of information Kritiker dealt in: it was the kind that destroyed people. He wondered if their buyer wanted to save a life, or destroy it themselves.

Sakai's door was undisturbed. He'd taken the phone call on Nakano Broadway and taken an hour and at least three trains getting back. Youji knocked twice and twice again. Sakai opened the door. There was a glass in his hand. He'd shed yesterday's anxiety like a skin.

"We're almost there, Kudou." He swirled the glass and drank.

Youji stepped through the door and closed it quietly behind him. He poured himself a glass and let the whisky slide down his throat. It was the best he'd drank in a long time. He poured another glass and let Sakai sit opposite him.

"The important word there is 'almost'."

"Relax, Youji, what could go wrong?"

"Ask me again when you're sober."

Sakai put down his glass and stood up. He walked over to the wardrobe and unwrapped a scarf from the neck of one of his winter jackets. It was an old scarf, a sickly autumn brown. Youji had never seen him wear it.

The scarf tore with a whisper of dying cloth. Sakai pulled a piece of wrinkled paper out and dropped it into Youji's lap. It was thin, cheap paper, from a photocopier. Youji unfolded it. The words were tilted. There were two dark streaks around the edge of the paper at slight angles to each other. A photocopy of a photocopy.

"Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience," he read. "Department of Neuropathology."

He skimmed the page, picking out the key words. Disorientation. Memory Loss. Mood changes. Recommendation for an MRI scan. Then the patient's name.

Standing opposite him, Sakai was smiling.

"So that's what's worth seven million yen," Youji said. "The Prime Minister is showing all the signs of Alzheimer's."


	8. Cold as Snow

Chapter Eight: Cold as Snow

Every time Youji went into Shinjuku Station he felt like he could live his entire life there. It was a city without a population. Millions of people came through there every day. None of them stayed there. People shopped, ate, drank and worked inside. None of them lived there. At three in the morning, there was none of that life inside. At three in the morning Japan's largest train station was a tomb.

They might as well have been alone there. Some trains still went in and out of the station, moving along the tracks like death rattles. Their passengers sleepwalked through the station, more like ghosts than men. Youji and Sakai were wide awake. They knew they were alive and they made the most of it.

There was a reason hiding things in train lockers was a cliché. It worked. Sakai hadn't kept the key on him, he'd paid the desk clerk to keep it and hand it back to him. It could have been the key to any locker. The one it opened might as well have been any other. It was near the East Ticket Gate, under the Chuo Line platforms. Sakai had chosen it completely at random. Youji didn't think anyone else would have thought of this. No one respected the classics anymore.

There was nothing in the locker but a shoulder bag. There was nothing in the bag but a buff folder. Youji didn't need to open it to know it contained photocopies of the neuropathologist's report on the Prime Minister. He didn't want to open it anyway. He saw folders like that all the time. It looked just like the ones Manx gave to Omi.

There were still people on the subway, but they had no constant company on the Marunouchi Line to Kasumigaseki Station. Neither of them spoke on the train. They didn't speak as they came out into the night and shivered. It was snowing again. The flakes were dancing like stars under the lights. On any other night it would have been beautiful. Now Youji just pulled his hat down, put his hands in his pockets and followed Sakai towards the park.

If you didn't look at the buildings behind it, the park could fool you that you were in Paris or London. It had everything: swathes of manicured grass, beautiful flower gardens, not one but two open-air concert halls, even a library. All in the heart of Tokyo's business district, with the Imperial Palace smiling benevolently down.

No space in the park was as prized as the tennis courts. More deals were made here than in Chiyoda's boardrooms. Patronage and alliances flourished between sets. The price of land in Tokyo was high enough as it was but the demand for space in those courts was so high they may as well have been sown with gold dust instead of grass. They could have been for all the effort that the park workers had gone to keeping the snow off, but all the snow in the last few days would have left a lot of people with bookings sorely disappointed. Waiting in the snow on the main path next to the courts, Youji wondered if they'd got their money back.

The city outside the park was as bright as ever. The snow was fresh on the ground. In the dark, it glowed. The night was silent. They could have been alone. It was four a.m.

The men didn't step out of the night. They tried to, but they just walked up like anyone else. There were four of them. The man who led them was professionally smart. He was flanked by two men who might as well have been the same guy twice. Behind him was the nervous young man from the park. That was a pity.

"Sakai-san, Kudou-san, good morning."

The man at the front spoke, and Youji knew who he was. He hadn't lied about his name. It really was Itsuo. He was Itsuo Arai, personal secretary to the Prime Minister. They said he and the Prime Minister knew each other better than they knew their wives. Now Youji knew how it would all end, and he couldn't say he liked it.

"Good morning," Sakai said.

He was trembling. Youji knew it wasn't from the cold.

"Do you have the file?"

"Do you have the money?"

The two interchangeable bodyguards stepped forwards. Each one had a case slung over his shoulder which he put on the ground and opened. They weren't moving at the same time, which spoiled the effect. Seven million yen took up a lot of space. There was three and a half million in each bag. It must have been heavy too.

Arai stood in between the cases and waited. Sakai stopped looking at the money, took out the file and then handed it over.

"Is this the only copy?"

"It's on paper from the Institute, copied straight from the original file by the agent," Sakai said.

"And we don't need another copy," Youji said. "In twenty-four hours we'll be so far from Japan, when we meet people they'll ask if we're Chinese."

They bought it, but his heart wasn't in it.

Arai smiled, tucked the folder under his arm and said, "That's just what the American said you'd say."

"Which American?" Youji asked.

Arai opened his mouth to answer. He didn't. He couldn't answer. He died without a sound.

You can learn a lot about a man from how he dies. Youji had known that for too long. He stood still, watching it like a movie he'd already seen. The two bodyguards started to draw their guns. They always had guns. Ken hit the nearest one in the back. One of his blades would have been enough, the rest just made sure. The other bodyguard tried to find the source of the arrow. It found him first. The young man screamed and ran for his life. Straight into Aya.

Ken did what he did best and kept going forward. The claws reached out for Sakai.

"Ken, stop!" Youji shouted.

Ken couldn't stop, but he could slide. He went straight past Sakai as he reached down for the bodyguard's fallen gun and aimed at Ken. Youji picked up the other one without even thinking. It was as cold as ice in his hand.

"Sakai!"

He started to turn. He should be allowed to face his betrayer and fire at the same time. That was what honour demanded. He deserved that much.

Youji shot him. The gun writhed in his hand like it was alive. He fired again. He fired twice more. Sakai's gun was still at his side. Sakai fell to his knees and it slipped into the snow. He raised his head and his face spoke a thousand words, but he didn't try to say any of them. He fell forward into the snow.

The angry gun burned in Youji's hand. He threw it as far away from him as he could, which wasn't far because it weighed a thousand tons. It landed in the blood amongst the dead men. Blood on the snow could have been beautiful, should have been artistic, but it was as ugly as any stain on anything pure, and this stain would never come out even if you cleaned until you went mad.

"This is a lot of money," Aya said.

"Seven million yen," Youji replied.

"What do you think Kritiker will do with it?" Ken asked.

"I'm sure they'll put it to good use, Ken-kun."

Youji was glad when Omi called Kritiker to clean up after them. He and Aya carried the money back to the Porsche and threw it in the trunk. He didn't know why there were other cars in the parking lot at this time in the morning, and he didn't care. He just wanted to go home. Youji knew he wasn't a florist, but he'd be happy to be one after this, for a few days at least.


	9. Stray Dog

Chapter Nine: Stray Dog

"The mission was successful," Manx said. "Though perhaps next time you could manage without one of you sending another one to the hospital."

"Yes, Manx."

Omi handed over his report without a word. Youji gave her his. It had taken him a week to write. He hadn't wanted to start it.

"It's not _The Long Goodbye_ but it'll do."

"Thank you," Manx said. "Is there anything else?"

Youji put out his cigarette, lit another and said, "I think we were being watched."

"Youji-kun?"

"What are you talking about?" Ken asked.

Youji stood. You should always stand for these things.

"We found out about Sakai too quickly. He should have been better at covering his tracks, even from us. Whoever fingered him had help, even if they don't know it. Someone was following us. He wasn't following me. He was following you. He was there when I hit Ken, when I met Aya, and in the park when we did the mission. He's a foreigner driving a red Mercedes sports car. The last thing Arai said was about an American who knew about this. No one cared who he was except me."

"Youji-kun... I found the car you told me about. It was a rental."

"Who drives a sports car in Tokyo?"

Ken was too stubborn not to answer, "Well... you."

"There are a lot of Americans in the city, Youji-kun." Omi sounded like he was apologising for it.

The cigarette had burned down to the filter. Youji watched them through the smoke. None of it felt real. He might as well have been telling a fairy tale to an empty room.

"I'll convey your concerns to Persia," Manx said. "Consider the mission over."

She left, then Omi left, then Aya left. Ken sat on the couch staring at him.

"You've got to admit, Youji," he said. "It's a pretty weird story."

"Yeah," Youji muttered. "I should stop painting and become a pulp novelist instead. I'm going out, Ken."

Ken said something friendly, but he didn't want to hear it. He found his coat and hat on a chair in the back of the stock room where he'd left them coming back from the mission. Someone hung the coat up on an old mop and left the hat on top of it. Only Ken would do something like that. It looked like the nineteen forties had come to visit but got tired of waiting.

He put on the coat and the hat, deciding this would be the last time. He could either be the detective Youji Kudou or the assassin Balinese, but he couldn't be both. He could look back, but he could never return.

It was dark, and it was still cold, but the snow had melted like it had never fallen. While there was snow, Tokyo had been transformed, but now normal service had been resumed. He walked two streets to bright clean coffee shop where all the fixtures were polished till they shone. They knew him there. The waitresses hadn't left school yet and did shifts after they'd finished their homework so they'd have money to keep up with the trends. The manager sometimes brought out coffee himself, got to know his customers and watched over the waiting staff like a father. There were other people from local businesses there. Youji got a nod from the clerk from the video rental store near the Koneko. He'd tell you anything you wanted to know about Takashi Shimura movies if you asked, but Youji wasn't in the mood to talk.

He watched the huge TV instead. The news was showing the highlights of the Prime Minister's resignation speech. For a whole day there'd been nothing on the news services but the revelation he was showing the early signs of Alzheimer's. The only thing that had got the news to shut up about that story was yesterday's announcement he was resigning. He'd kept it together and said it was because he wanted to spend more time with his children, especially in light of the tragic death of his close friend Itsuo Arai. Everyone knew what he wasn't saying. As he gave the speech, the old man looked like he wanted nothing more than just to drop dead on the spot and get it over with.

They were talking about who'd take charge of the party already. The journalists had been promised an announcement on when the party would vote for the new Prime Minister. All anyone knew so far was that vote wouldn't be for a while, out of respect, but that didn't stop everyone talking about the candidates. There were four so far, and at the top of everyone's lists was the Defence Minister, Reiji Takatori. During the after-school rush, while Youji had been selling carnations to schoolgirls, Takatori had formerly announced his candidacy.

Youji blinked. He took a swig of his coffee and looked again. They were still there. They were barely in the camera frame. Youji almost wished they weren't. Two men standing just behind Takatori's podium. They were both bodyguards, but they wanted everyone to know they weren't normal bodyguards because they were both wearing white suits. Even then, they wouldn't look normal. They were both at least six feet tall, and the taller one's hair probably added another two inches. He looked European, but Youji couldn't say from where. The other one could have been from anywhere western, but his suit said he was American.

There were lots of Americans in Tokyo, but only one of them was standing behind the man who could be the next Prime Minister. What if he was the American that Arai had worked with? What if he had found out that Kritiker had a copy of the Prime Minister's medical file? What if he had known Sakai was a Kritiker agent? What if he had persuaded Arai to hire Sakai to kill the other agent and take back the file? What if he had helped Kritiker find Sakai? What if his red-haired colleague had followed them every step of the way in a scarlet Mercedes? What if he knew that Kritiker would release the file out of vengeance? What if he had done all this so the Prime Minister would resign and his boss would be one step away from being the leader of Japan?

What if?

Too many what ifs. He could tell the others. Aya would ignore him, Omi would ask him if he was sure, Ken would tell him he was mad. But he knew. He understood it now.

Youji Kudou finished his coffee, walked out into the street and lit a cigarette. He wrapped his coat around himself and put his hat back on. He'd be keeping them both after all.

_The End_


End file.
